


Place Holder

by badboy_fangirl



Series: The Defunct Freedom Universe [2]
Category: Prison Break
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 16:34:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10575204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: Lincoln and Sara struggle with trust issues.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is from the Freedom Universe that no longer exists

When Lincoln left Sara’s apartment, he thought he had her convinced. She wasn’t going to abort their baby, and she thought he wasn’t angry that she’d even thought about it in the first place.  
  
She was only right insofar as muttering every swear word he knew, cursing his brother, and then driving high up into the mountains above his house to get out of his car and scream at the top of his lungs  _wasn’t_  angry.  
  
He was beyond angry. If he didn’t love Sara, he probably would have wrapped his hands around her throat and choked the life out of her that she so obviously wanted to extinguish.  
  
He tried to make a mental list of all the things about it that were scary for her, but ultimately none of those things mattered to him because he knew what bothered her most about this situation, and it wasn’t any of those most obvious first pregnancy jitters. What mattered to her was she was pregnant and it wasn’t Michael’s baby. After all these months, he’d actually talked himself into believing she was falling in love with him, that when he made love to her he was the only one in her mind, that when they met in seedy motel rooms, it was for LJ’s sake, even though her apartment would be a perfectly good place to spend time together.  
  
They could look at a pregnancy test and discuss abortion in her apartment, but they surely couldn’t fuck there.   
  
He had always known; he just didn’t want to know. Somewhere in the middle of mind blowing sex and an escape from the guilt of his brother being in prison, Lincoln had fallen in love with Sara Tancredi. And she would be horrified to know that he’d wanted her to get pregnant, because he wanted to tie her to him, and it was selfish and stupid and he knew it, but all the same, it was how he felt.  
  
He’d never told her about the condom that broke, he’d just thrown it in the garbage and climbed back into bed with her, because after sex she was warm and cuddly and she never pushed him away.  
  
In the dark, on a old mountain road, he screamed in his rage into the night, and then he got back in his car and slumped behind the wheel. He cried for his brother, and for her, and for a baby he suspected he would love more than he could currently imagine. Lastly he cried for himself, because in part he was getting what he wanted, but in truth he could never really have everything he desired: a world that hadn’t been wrecked by a conspiracy that somehow still managed to reach out and destroy every little bit of happiness he tried to create. It was too fucked up a situation to even think it would be pain free.  
  
He shifted the car into reverse and wiped at his cheeks. He had to have faith, just like Michael always said. He had to have faith that now that they were here, it would work out. Maybe now, Sara would love him.  
  
Maybe now, he wouldn’t care that Michael would never forgive him.  
  


*

  
  
A few days later, Sara called. She had that tone, the one that said she wanted to meet up at the Days Inn, and Lincoln, for the first time ever, said no. He lied about some dinner he had to go to with LJ, but he felt as guilty as if he’d fucked someone else.  
  
He loved Sara, and he didn’t want to ever not be with her, especially now that she carried his child. But at the same time, he couldn’t help but feel he was playing second fiddle to Michael when his brother didn’t deserve Sara anyway. And for whatever reason, tonight, he didn’t want to deal with it.  
  
The times when Lincoln felt most righteous about everything he’d done was when he felt Sara’s sorrow over Michael’s abandonment. He felt it more often than he wanted to, but he had to believe eventually she would get over it. While he liked to drive out that sorrow by replacing it with pleasure, tonight, he just didn’t think he could handle another anonymous hotel room, and Sara’s passionate cries that might actually hold his brother’s name somewhere in the middle of them.   
  
If he was steady, and reliable, and if he never let her down, then she’d have to accept his love, she’d have to see that Michael didn’t deserve the tears she’d cried over him. And tomorrow, he’d start it all over again, but tonight, he was being unreliable. Tonight, he was doing what Lincoln-before-The-Conspiracy would have done. He was running away.  
  
“I’ll see you later, Dad,” LJ said from the kitchen doorway, interrupting Lincoln’s thoughts.  
  
Lincoln turned from the sink, where he was rinsing out some dishes, and said, “Wear a hood, it’s raining out there.”  
  
“Okay. I’ll be home late, don’t wait up.”  
  
“Have fun,” Lincoln said, his voice muted.  
  
“Okay,” LJ said again, and Lincoln turned back to the sink. Then his son asked, “You all right?”  
  
Lincoln looked back, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “I’m fine, why?”  
  
“I don’t know, you just seem…sort of bummed, you know? You want me to stay home tonight? I don’t have to hang out with Jess.”  
  
Lincoln and LJ had at some point passed from only father and son to close friends, though Lincoln tried hard to keep some sense of fatherliness about himself with remarks like  _wear a hood_  and  _eat your vegetables_. But there were moments when he thought LJ saw right through him. “No,” he said emphatically. “I’m fine. You go, have fun.”  
  
“You got any plans?” LJ asked, still lingering. “Maybe Sara’s coming over?”  
  
Lincoln stared at his son, and not for the first time, wondered if LJ suspected anything. Sometimes he wished it would all come out, and then they’d all have to deal with it. “No,” he said, and moved into another lie. “I haven’t talked to her lately. Maybe I should call her.”  
  
“What do you mean you haven’t talked to her lately? She called here earlier, I saw her number on the caller ID.” Caught, as he was, Lincoln really didn’t know what to say, so he remained silent and to his surprise, LJ continued on in a very irritated voice, “Whatever. Don’t tell me. I probably don’t want to know anyway.”   
  
He watched his son swing away and grab for one of his hoodie sweatshirts that hung on the coat rack. “LJ—“  
  
“Forget it, Dad,” LJ said brutally and Lincoln found himself chasing his son to the front door.  
  
“LJ, wait,” he said.  
  
He did, turning back as he flipped the hood up over his head. It wasn’t cold outside, but a warm rain had been falling most of the day, and the way LJ’s face peered out of the hood reminded Lincoln sharply that LJ was his son, not his friend, and to burden him with this was not appropriate.  
  
“She did call, I just forgot. When she called, she just—“  
  
“Don’t lie,” LJ interrupted. “You don’t have to tell me, but don’t you fucking lie to me.”  
  
Lincoln huffed out a breath in agitation and threw up his hands. “Fine.” He turned and went back towards the kitchen.  
  
“Dad?”  
  
He paused, but he didn’t look back at his son. “What?”  
  
“Be careful,” was all LJ said. Then Lincoln heard the front door close.  
  
“It’s too late for that,” he muttered to the empty house.  
  


*

  
  
An hour or so later, Lincoln was in the kitchen again, this time cutting up a pineapple. Sara’s influence could be felt throughout their home, but nowhere more profoundly than in the kitchen. If they didn’t have fruit and vegetables on hand, she generally would show up with a bag full of them. However, this pineapple was something Lincoln had purchased himself, but in an effort to not give in and call her to meet up, he decided to chop up all the stuff in his fridge that needed to be chopped up for better preservation.  
  
The sun had just sunk below the horizon and the light was fading fast, so as he reached over to flip the overhead light on, he was startled by something catching his eye through the window. He paused, scanning the backyard carefully, and then saw movement again and he was certain there was someone out there. His sock-clad feet skidded across the floor as he ran to the door off the kitchen that led to the garage and then out the back door to see who the hell was in his yard.  
  
“Who’s there?” he shouted as he flipped the outside light on. They rarely shut the door that led into the backyard, so he rushed through the opened doorway and almost plowed Sara over.   
  
Holding up her hands, out of fright or just for protection, he wasn’t sure, she exclaimed, “Oh, good god, Lincoln!”  
  
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked loudly. She was already quite wet, and it didn’t take him standing there for long before the rain soaked him as well.  
  
“Finding out that you lied to me,” she responded angrily. “I thought you had something to do with LJ?”  
  
“ _You’re_  slinking around in my backyard, and you want to accuse me of something?” He pointed the paring knife in his hand at her and, with just as much anger in his tone, said, “Why didn’t you just call if you wanted to check up on me?”  
  
Her eyes strayed to the knife, but she didn’t look scared at all—just angry. “Because you don’t have to answer the phone, that’s why! There aren’t any lights on in the front of the house, so I came around back, and sure enough, there you are. And LJ’s not here, I saw that his car isn’t in the driveway,” she said, and it was half explanation for her actions, half evidence as to why Lincoln was a liar, and he recognized that by the way she phrased everything. When he didn’t respond, she asked, “You gonna stab me with that?”  
  
Lincoln’s eyes moved from her face to the knife in his hand and he muttered, “I ought to,” but he jammed the knife into the wooden doorframe so it stuck out just above his head.  
  
“Why didn’t you want to see me?” she asked.  
  
More lies formulated in Lincoln’s head quicker than the rain had soaked his shoeless feet, but all he could hear was LJ’s hurt tone from before when he’d told his father not to lie to him. So he said nothing, he just looked at her, at her red hair plastered to her head and neck and the thin t-shirt and Capri pants she wore that clung to her body beautifully with the moisture.  
  
“You can’t be mad at me for wanting to get rid of the baby, and then just abandon me,” she said, her voice shaking.  
  
Lincoln blinked. Angrily he said, “I’d never abandon you! How can you even think that?” He wanted to shake her, and kiss her. He wanted to smack her and then hold her tight. He wanted to tell her he loved her, but he knew she wouldn’t take well to it.  
  
“How can I think that?” she repeated, and he couldn’t tell if she was more angry or hurt, or maybe it was just a mixture of both, but suddenly he didn’t really care, because he himself felt both, and she wasn’t concerned about that. She only wanted him to say he wouldn’t leave her, when that was the most obvious thing in the whole fucking world as far as he was concerned. She reached out, her fingers sliding down inside the waistband of his jeans. She pulled him towards her and said right in his face, “Because every other man I’ve ever known has done that very thing. And you have more reason to run than any of them.”  
  
Lincoln’s hands landed against her neck, tipping her head back so that she could see his eyes when he said, “No, Sara, I have more reason to stay than any of them.”  
  
Then he punished her for even thinking it, much less saying it aloud, with a cruel kiss. His lips mashed hers harshly against her teeth while his tongue pushed into her mouth, thrusting manically to show possession, nothing else.  
  
There wasn't anything remotely loving about his actions, though the sentiment burned through him until he felt as though he were inside out, everything hanging out for her trample over as she so chose.  
  
When her fingers started pulling at his pants, he understood that she didn’t care. She would take any kind of affection, even the worst kind.  
  
He felt the belt slide rapidly as she yanked it from his waist and the leather whipped through the air as Sara threw it aside. Then her hands were pushing his pants and underwear out of the way and the thrust of his erection curved up into her palm. There was a moment right then that bordered on violence, where he felt the anger and hurt in her peak dangerously and she hesitated for just a brief second. Lifting his mouth from hers, he pulled her out of the rain into the doorway of his garage, and in the muted light from overhead, their eyes met.  
  
She wanted to hurt him, and he knew she could right then. Physically she had him at his most vulnerable, but when their lips came crashing back together, he knew the only pain he’d ever feel from her would be of the emotional variety.   
  
He walked her backwards until she was against his car, and as she pulled his shirt over his head, he reached for it to spread it out on the hood. Stripping her wet pants and underwear off, he lifted her up and dropped her gently down on the front of the car, catching her knees with flats of his palms to make a space between her legs for himself. For the first time since the first time they’d been together, he entered her without a condom on.   
  
And it felt so good he came after only two thrusts.  
  
His embarrassment was monumental, when a few moments later, he realized what had happened in the flurry of movement and emotion that had erupted inside him at her arrival. He had a split second to think of how he could have hurt her unintentionally, but her body had been warm and moist and very responsive, though not nearly as combustible as his. Now her hands gently stroked the back of his neck and her head rested against his chest, and she seemed none too worried about the fact that she hadn’t had a climax herself.  
  
Gruffly, he uttered, “I’m sorry,” and tried to tug himself free of her. But she wouldn’t allow him to withdraw, her arms and legs had wound around him, and he discovered he couldn’t move away from her without her cooperation.  
  
Her lips brushed his cheek, his ear, and then her whispered words echoed between them. “Right now, I’m not. Not at all.”  
  
He knew it wasn’t much, but he took it, gladly.


End file.
